Doubting Dawkins in the Face of Tragedy

Does atheism have anything to offer a person struggling with tragedy and grief? That’s the question raised by this video, which I’ve seen posted in a few places. What do you think? Does a video like this score any points against atheism by pointing out how empty it is in the face of real tragedy?

My first response to this video wasn’t terribly positive. An atheist could easily use a video like this to support the claim that religion really is just a crutch for those too cowardly to face the tragic emptiness of life. The video seems to suggest that only religion can provide real solace in the face of death. But is “solace” religion’s primary function? Do we believe merely because it makes us feel better? If so, Marx was right and religion is an opiate.

But, on the flipside, the video does highlight the fact that human experience seems to raise questions that atheism is poorly equipped to handle. It’s not necessarily that we simply seek “comfort” in religion. But it’s that the answers atheism offers fall apart in the face of people’s lived experience. Atheism sounds good in the classroom, but not the cemetery. As I said in an earlier post, it’s hard to dismiss evil when the cat is sitting on your head.

But I’m probably over-thinking things (I usually do). Maybe it’s just a funny video worth a few moments of your time.

And the issue isn’t so much about just “feeling better” but about whether we’re avoiding the truth in order to make ourselves feel better. If so, then we’re really no better than the person who uses alcohol or drugs to avoid facing reality. (Obviously, I don’t think this is true. But our the way we talk sometimes makes it sound like this is really what’s going on.)

I hear what you are saying, but from various comments around the blogs it seems that some atheists are using a refusal to “feel good” as a defense against God’s grace. Not that they mind feeling good in worldly ways. Whereas I believe God is willing to dispense grace with a teaspoon: it doesn’t need to be the full fire hose. Grains of mustard seed.

First blush thought, no, the video has no impact on an atheist, though for a believer, there is a measure of humor in it, though I really don’t want to laugh at the atheist. I have debated a fair amount with atheists and I have learned that no matter how poignant the argument for Christianity, it always falls on deaf ears, which makes sense in light of the words of the apostle Paul, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Without the efficacious work of the Holy Spirit, we would all be atheists. Thank you Lord for your unmerited/demerited love and grace!

Quite provocative. I think it can be useful so long as the conversation it generates is handled carefully. For instance, you’re right to worry that this is no more than a way for Christians to promote the fact that their religion is an opiate. However, it still remains the fact that humanity is the type of being who consciously experiences a sense of terrible loss when confronted with death and who, almost without thinking, seeks an explanation and wishes it were not so.

Also, when confronted with this kind of tragedy, human beings often need to find artistic/poetic ways of communicating the significance of such an event because, at the end of the day, the brute force of the thing simply cannot be answered with, ‘stuff happens.’ If we take Dawkins and the materialistic position to its logical conclusion, it seems we would be devolving into creatures for whom consciousness is a nuisance rather than a means to further survival.